Location Choice Characteristics of Group-buying Pickup Points in Urban Communities from the Perspective of"Customers-Goods-Scenes":A Case Study of the Main Urban Area in Guangzhou
LIANG Xuchu
LAN Zhiyi
WEI Zongcai
Abstract：In recent years,the community group-buying mode characteristic of"online pre-sale+offline self-pickup"has developed rapidly and become an important component of retail in China.In comparison to the traditional retail mode,there have been conspicuous changes in the location selection,spatial organisation and service scope of self-pickup points for community group buying.Therefore,it is crucial to investigate the location choice characteristics of self-pickup points from the perspective of three fundamental elements in the retail industry:customers,goods,and scenes.A case study based on the main urban area of Guangzhou was carried out herein,which explored the location selection characteristics of self-pickup points for community group buying from the perspective of customers,goods,and scenes,and revealed their differences from traditional retail.The results provide support for the optimisation of self-pickup point layout,and facilitate the reconstruction of urban retail spaces driven by digital technology.
Based on multi-source data,including the self-pickup points of Xingsheng Preferred,the built environment,population portrait,and store rent,this study identifies location selection characteristics of self-pickup points from the perspectives of spatial distribution patterns,the type of attached spaces,and the features of service objects using kernel density analysis and term-frequency analysis.Furthermore,an Extreme Gradient Boosting(XGBoost)model was built to pinpoint the influencing factors of the decision-making tree model on the location selection of community group-buying self-pickup points and their nonlinear relationships.Furthermore,on-site investigations and semi-structured interviews on 20 typical cases were carried out to determine the influencing mechanism of location selection of community group-buying self-pickup points.
The results demonstrated the following:(1)The self-pickup points for community group buying were mostly attached to community commercial facilities,presenting multi-centre spatial distribution characteristics and mainly clustering in areas with high population density,such as urban villages and district-level commercial areas.(2)There was a cooperative relationship between self-pickup points for community group buying and physical stores,indicating that these self-pickup points had a path dependence on traditional retail spaces.Furthermore,the spatial distribution of self-pickup points was more dispersed,which complemented traditional retail spaces in areas with underdeveloped traditional retail and lower income levels.This reflected that the location selection of self-pickup points did not completely follow the technological diffusion hypothesis.(3)The density of retail facilities,such as convenience stores,was the predominant factor affecting the location selection of self-pickup points,followed by the population density,road network density,and specific socioeconomic attributes of residents.However,the effect of store rent and public transport accessibility diminished compared to that in traditional retail.(4)After extensive expansion in the early stages of community group buying,the location selection of its self-pickup points had to overcome some difficulties,including the supply-demand imbalance and the necessity to optimize the selection of attached spaces.
Supported by digital technologies such as the internet and big data,the community group-buying mode demonstrated innovations in commodity procurement,warehousing logistics,store leasing,and sales channels.A flexible,precisely scheduled,and highly responsive supply chain network was established.As a result,user demand is the primary principle for the location selection of self-pickup points,while the significance of commercial and logistical centres diminishes.The traditional retail sequence of"goods,scenes,customers"has been replaced by the sequence of"customers,goods,scenes".Considering the threshold effects of critical indicators,future planning can strengthen planning guidance,fill the blind area of service,facilitate supply-demand matching,and guide storage space and unloading fields in self-pickup points,aiming to promote the optimisation of self-pickup point layout for community group buying.
Keywords：community group buying"customers-goods-scenes"location selectionnew retail space
Publication Date：2025-04-30
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：11( 89-99 )